Biden Says Xi Was Not Informed About Spy Balloon

President Biden on Tuesday night called President Xi Jinping of China a “dictator” who had been kept in the dark by his own government about the spy balloon that crossed into United States airspace this winter before being shot down by an American fighter jet.

At a campaign fund-raiser in California, Mr. Biden set off into what appeared to be an unplanned riff about the incident that ruptured relations with China for months, revealing what United States intelligence agencies had learned about the internal confusion in Beijing during the incident.